Rachel is 20 years old and will be moving into an apartment on June 1st. She's my baby, but says I'll never get empty nest syndrome because the nest is always being re-filled by chicks and calves!

I'm really impressed with the creamline I'm getting when I separate the calf for the day, then use her to jump-start letdown. It is nearly a third of every jar. Starting tomorrow, I'm only going to milk once a day because today I was only able to get a total of a gallon and a half of milk from two milkings. It isn't worth the work of cleaning up for that little milk. I'll pen up the baby after morning chores - then I'll probably get at least two gallons in the evening. That's plenty for the house, IMHO.

The only difference is that I am feeding my cow no commercial grain blend anymore. She is fed cooked corn, soaked beet pulp, and fodder - grain that is sprouted by soaking in water, then rinsing twice a day until there is a dense root mat and about 4 inches of growth on the top - plus she gets free choice hay. She also just freshened about a week ago.

I'm very impressed with this yield.

mrsKK, I'd love to hear how you're doing the sprouting of the grains and how and why you're cooking the corn. I've been thinking of switching my goat herd to sprouted grains. I've heard that to really up production it helps to use some liquid sea minerals in the wash......not sure if that would be for the first soak or what. What are you sprouting your grains in/on that you go for a good root mat and 4" of top growth? I'd love to hear all the details you're willing to share.

Here's where it all started. Mind you, this link is Chapter 1 - the Keeping a Family Cow forum has had quite a lively discussion of fodder raising and feeding and it wouldn't make sense for me to lay out the details here - that forum is now up to 4 chapters regarding fodder feeding!

Because I don't like to spend much money before I try something new, I experimented with sprouting corn in gallon glass jars. I started another thread on KFC regarding that.

I'm now feeding a ground mix (from grains we purchased, adding minerals, vitamins, and diatomaceous earth), cooked grains, beet pulp, and free choice alfalfa/grass mix hay. For the fall, I just have been too busy and sick (pneumonia) to do the work of raising fodder, but plan to go back to it once I'm feeling better and the farm is put to bed for the winter. My reasoning on cooking grains is that they are easier to digest than whole grains and I have a belief that different preparations of the grains make different nutrients available. Not sure if my beliefs are very sound, but the animals enjoy the blend they get, so I'm continuing. I'm cooking a blend of corn and barley.

IDK about adding minerals to the rinse water - I simply use well water and have excellent growth. I know that I have to rinse the sprouts/fodder very well before feeding it to my cow or she won't eat it - she's very fussy. The pigs, calves and chickens don't care.